Broad-Based
Coalition of 200 Obies Marches In D.C.
by
Ariella Cohen
Usually
pigeons and middle school boys armed with skateboards occupy the
stone walkways of Freedom Plaza, but last Saturday, at the first
anti-war demonstration since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the
downtown Washington D.C. landmark buzzed with another group of young
and action-ready visitors. Equipped with not only the requisite
signs and banners but also their own cameras, clipboards and enough
pamphlets to wallpaper the nearby White House,several thousand activists
gathered by a newly organized anti-racist coalition A.N. S.W.E.R.,
spent the day in a largely peaceful rally and march to the Capitol
I think that the big A.N.S.W.E.R. rally was for the most part
very successful. It was peaceful and large and demonstrated to all
those people that wanted to protest but were afraid of getting arrested
that we can engage in political struggle without unnecessary sacrifice,
junior and Socialist Alternative member Ted Virdone said. Working
in a large coalition of students and organizations such as the Muslim
Student Organization, the Asian American Student Alliance and the
Oberlin Peace Activist League, Virdone helped send busloads of puppet
and drum toting Oberlin students to the rally.
We had 200 people go to D.C. because the coalition didn't
belong to anybody. Activism on this campus is always strongly segregated
to different Oberlin Communities. The beautiful thing about CARAW
[the Oberlin anti-racist and anti-war coalition that organized for
the trip to D.C.] was that for a moment there it seemed like we
could defy the laws of physics & Oberlin politics by having
a place for action that nobody claimed as their own, junior
Jason Johnston said.
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